Mark Edward Mattingly, 64, passed away peacefully in his home on August 6, 2020. His final week was spent in the loving presence of his wife Sharon, eldest brother Walt, and his three children (Alex, Naila, and Rachel) and their spouses (Elizabeth, Matthew, and Billy).

Mark was a man who never got bored. His intense curiosity, coupled with a conviction that there was nothing he could not figure out, meant Mark was always up to something . His life was a series of explorations and projects and discoveries. His first brush with notoriety occurred at age 5 when he landed in the local paper for growing a sunflower that towered over the family home. Neighbors continued to watch him with equal parts interest and concern as he developed a love of rocketry that led his father to put a strict limit on the quantity of explosive he was allowed to use (a restriction that led Mark and Walt to discover the principle of "compression," or "how to follow the letter of the law while thumbing your nose at the spirit.")

As an adult, Mark worked as a chemical engineer and a metallurgist, with brief stints in insurance, newspaper delivery, and product testing. (No job market was ever so bad it stopped him from providing for his family.) As an engineer, he liked to test things and take them apart. His principle way of understanding the world was to argue about it, loudly and often. No matter what position friends and family espoused, they could be sure Mark would take the opposite.

But a savvy observer would quickly understand that Mark was a man best judged by his actions. And his actions proved him to be deeply committed to his wife Sharon, whom he chose over all else each day of his life. He was a dedicated father, and a loving grandfather, whose greatest legacy to his children was to teach them that there was no problem they could not solve, no effort they could not give, and no question that was not an invitation to adventure. And while his family mourns his passing, they take comfort in knowing he is on the next great adventure of his life.

In lieu of flowers, Mark's family asks donations be made in his memory to Joy's House in Indianapolis at www.joyshouse.org/give or to the Association for Frontotemporal Dementia at www.theaftd.org/get-involved